By OGEMDI OZOEMENAM, Awka
The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Anambra State Chapter has secured a strategic partnership with the state’s Ministry of Information and Value Reformation to rebuild the state’s reputation and train Information Officers of the ministry.
This was the highpoint of the courtesy visit by the Chapter to the Ministry’s Commissioner, Dr Law Mefor in Awka.
Mefor, a friend of NIPR, performed the Unveiling of the Chapter’s 2026 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Summit, and subsequently, attended the main event with Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo on Friday 13th March 2026 at International Convention Centre, Awka.
To this end, the visit becomes necessary as the Chapter Chairman, Dr Ngozi Ulogu said it was in line with the Chapter’s engagement with critical stakeholders, and the Ministry of Information which serves as the organisation’s parent body, particularly now the Commissioner was reappointed.
“The Commissioner has been our valued member who has continued to identify with us; hence, we seek renewed partnership with his ministry.”
On how NIPR will collaborate with the ministry to achieve her mandate, Dr Ulogu said the target is to manage reputation, image-making and communication as well as highlight the values of responsible and strategic communication in line with the ministry’s mandate of Value Reformation.
“When we highlight issues in the public domain, we use communication to change public perception and receive reformed behavioral change from the populace.
“So when we come together, we provide the knowledge and expertise while the ministry will give us the target audience needed, thereby becoming a consummation of harmonious marriage to reinvent a new Anambra person, which the Governor has envisaged,” she said.
Responding, the Commissioner Dr Law Mefor appreciated the collaboration with NIPR as being timely particularly now the Ministry of Information’s mandate has been expanded to include value reformation.
He charged public relations practitioners to align with Governor Chukwuma Soludo in rebuilding Anambra’s damaged reputation by joining the government’s moral rebirth campaign.
Dr Mefor, a veteran journalist and communication scholar, lamented that Anambra’s once-brilliant reputation as the ‘Light of the Nation,’ has been damaged in the last decade due to the erosion of core Igbo values, including the criminalisation of Biafran agitation and get-rich-quick syndrome.
While linking reputation to security and social values, Dr Mefor warned against harmful influences, particularly of fake pastors and native doctors who have acted as enablers of crime.
“Fake native doctors and some fake pastors are even more dangerous than criminals, because religion commands unquestioning loyalty. That is the enormity of the work before us,” he said.
While accepting NIPR’s request for closer ties, the Commissioner announced that NIPR should be integrated into the state’s Ministry of Information, while offering the Chapter an office space and approving training for information officers by the NIPR Anambra chapter.
“Ordinarily, we should be the ones requesting you to retrain our information officers, but you came to us. We say thank you. As a master of fact, we have about 185 information officers posted to other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), as well as local government areas and specialised institutions. We gave them dual mandate to report activities of their various MDAs and as well, function as public relations officers. So you can see why they need PR training.
“Therefore, consider here your base, hence we offer you a one-room office so as to feel part and parcel of the ministry.
“To implement the partnership properly, I will also propose a joint implementation working committee between NIPR and the ministry to dish out essential details to achieve desired objectives,” he concluded.
